I was all up to my ears in farming, organics, getting mud all over my shiny red rain boots, planting strawberries in the rain, cutting down cover crops in a hail storm, harvesting only part of the crop because the rain got to it and now it's all moldy, rewashing bushels of carrots because people at the farmer's market are all EW THERE'S DIRT ON MY CARROT RIGHT THERE CAN'T YOU SEE IT?! I CAN'T BE EXPECTED TO DINE ON THIS VAGUELY SOILED ORGANIC VEGETABLE FOR WHICH I JUST PAID MERE PENNIES! CLEAN IT FOR ME NOW!, wearing myself out planting seedlings up and down many rows of beds and then waiting forevers to harvest them while fertilizing and watering like a lunatic and such. And then, in my second semester I took Hydroponic Food Production and was all, Oh. OH.OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH.This is way better.Then I got a job at the college greenhouse running a few of those hydroponic crops and was all OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH some more.Like when I seeded a tray of basil and seven weeks later it I harvested it.SEVEN WEEKS LATER I HARVESTED IT. SEVEN WEEKS.

1,2...

3,4,5,6,7...

Done,

Done,

and done.

And then I every week I harvested another 46-92 fully grown basil plants that were only a few weeks old and had grown happily and fast as fuckly to their maturity on just 45 gallons of recirculating water and nutrients blended to suit their specific needs. I love specificity in vegetables. And all things, really. And then I tried growing pac choi and FIVE weeks later I harvested it. FIVE WEEKS LATER ONLY.

And then every week I harvested about 46 pac choi plants.And we've talked about the lettuce. OH THE BLOODY LETTUCE. Sow a tray of seed one week and four weeks later you have this.

105 butterhead lettuces at your service.

And then we tried some weird shit that turned out awesome. Like, remember how there were carrots being rewashed because EW THERE'S A DIRT ON IT?Yeah, so, imagine the nightmare of leeks - the OH MY GOD THERE'S A DIRT ON IT and IN IT and oh the woe and horror of cleaning leeks, etc because of the soil that ends up in between the leek leaves and all over the roots and people buying produce at a farmer's market get all up in arms about the horrible woeful dirt so you must clean them thoroughly...Well, not when you grow them hydroponically.

What little media that's left on the roots washes off with a quick spray of the hose

And then, have you ever gotten to eat leek roots because OH MY GOD GOODNESS. Like leek spaghetti. Yes yum.

No knees or backs were killed in the harvesting of this crop

OH MY GOD THE CLEAN AS FUCKNESS IS EXTREME.

And all of these crops, which turn over way faster so you're able to grow and harvest way more than what you see here, grow in about a quarter the space of the field crops, use a fraction the amount of water and fertilizers, come away very clean, are easier to harvest and very rarely get ruined by whatever the weather's dishing out outdoors.

So, bottom line for those of you who are all SHUT UP AND TELL ME WHAT THIS HAS TO DO WITH NOT BEING A FARMER ANYMORE, WOMAN...

I'm not planning to be a field farmer anymore and instead am aiming to be a hydroponic farmer.

Of food.

Not, like, that *other* crop that everyone automatically associates with hydroponics. Not that *that crop* is bad or anything, but it's not really food and I fucking love growing food.

So, yeah. That's all that was about. I'm taking my farming indoors so that I can grow way more of it and also so that I can have 400 more pets courtesy of the aquaponic lettuce system. Hooray for that.

Wait, what? I'm having some issues understanding that farmer's market shoppers have issues with dirt.OH! PEOPLE! VEGGIES COME OUT OF THE EFFING GROUND!!!(facepalm)Sigh.Those photos are absolutely gorgeous. You could make a lot of pesto with that basil. Pesto. For gnocchi.PS. I think you must get as annoyed by the "heh heh" jokes surrounding hydroponics as our friend Ele gets about the "heh heh" jokes surrounding the fact that she lives in Amsterdam. Eyeroll.

[2013 update: You can't comment as an anonymous person anymore. Too many douchebags were leaving bullshit SPAM comments and my inbox was getting flooded, but if you're here to comment in a real way like a real person, go to it.]

Look at you commenting, that's fun.

So, here's the thing with commenting, unless you have an email address associated with your own profile, your comment will still post, but I won't have an email address with which to reply to you personally.

Sucks, right?

Anyway, to remedy this, I usually come back to my posts and post replies in the comment field with you.

But, if you ever want to email me directly to talk about pumpkins or shoes or what it's like to spend a good part of your day Swiffering - shoot me an email to finnyknitsATgmailDOTcom.